The end of silver, or of an opinion

The moment of truth is coming for me.

I've been a silver bug for more than a decade. In looking at the supply/demand equasion over that period I concluded that the silver market is heading for a crackup of monumental proportions, a situation that will possibly result in the destruction of the market itself (for reasons similar to but greater than what's happened in the palladium market). If I am right, those who own physical silver and the shares of silver mining companies (and I own a lot of both) will be rewarded, those who play in the market buying and selling (mostly selling) paper contracts will lose their ampersands.

But all beliefs, all conclusions, must eventually be put to the test; if they can't be, they are worthless. If they are weighed and found wanting, they can be expensive both in dollars and in reputation. No one likes a false prophet, especially one that costs them money. And while no one could have lost money buying silver when I said to (it's more than twice the price at which I bought my last ounce), the time where my conclusion that silver stocks are perilously low - due to the monetary shenanigans of both governments and silver users - is about to be tested.

Here's why:

On September 27, 2006 the iShares Silver Trust (AMEX-SLV) filed a S-1 to register 15,222,727 shares at a proposed maximum offering price of $110.00 per share for a maximum net offering proceeds of $1,674,449,970.

As of 09/28/2006, iShares Silver Trust showed 104,323,655 ounces of silver in the trust or 3,244.8 tonnes. This represented 10,450,000 shares. Thus the registration of the S-1 this week will effectively increase the amount of shares and silver by just under 150%.

SLV has purchased more than 100m ounces of silver and taken it off the market so far. Where they got it I don't know (Warren Buffett?) but it represents a significant percentage of the world's known silver inventory. I had doubts they would be able to accumulate so much without exploding the market, as did the Silver Users Association. Well, they did it. And SLV was a great success, as shown by the above graph of their holdings of physical silver.

So much so, they want to do it again.

If the SLV S-1 is accepted, and if they really attempt to purchase another 150 million ounces of physical silver (more than exists in the COMEX warehouses and about 25% of the world's known supply) I expect the market will explode. That silver is simply not available, at least nowhere near $11 an ounce. It had to come to this, and the fact that SLV didn't explode the market the first time increases the odds that they will be allowed to at least attempt to fill the offering.

It will certainly raise the price of silver. It should send silver into the stratusphere, at least if I'm correct about the current state of the market.

So that's where the test comes in. If it explodes the market, those who own physical silver will do very well. If it does not, then while silver owners will still do well, I'll need to re-examine my beliefs about the entire market.

If it sounds like a win/win, it is in all but pride. And I can live with that.

Fallacy of Composition

And so this is what happens, then:

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Amaranth Advisors LLC, the hedge fund manager which lost billions of dollars in energy trades, will suspend redemptions and liquidate its remaining positions, the company said in a letter made available to Reuters Friday...

Amaranth suffered a $6 billion loss this month in wrong-way bets on natural gas derivatives.

Amaranth was neither a supplier nor a user of natural gas. It was simply a trader in the NatGas market that made bets on the price movements of natural gas contracts, the dangers of which I mentioned here and here. It was, in fact, a parasite on the market, and while I take no pleasure in the fact that the fund lost six thousand million dollars of its investors' money in a mere month, I will say that markets don't give you what you want, but they nearly always give you what you deserve.

But there are two lessons to be learned. The first is that the Fallacy of Composition is alive and well. It states (simplified) that what one person does in a market will not have the same effect, and will possibly have an opposite effect, once a lot of people try to do it. One or two hedge funds in a market will not significantly move the market. When hundreds jump in and do exactly the same thing, they increase the odds that they will destroy both it and themselves. How much of the 70% reduction in natural gas' price can be attributed to Amaranth's trouble is probably unknowable. That natgas moved as high as it did and as low as it did as quickly as it did is directly attributable to hundreds of Amaranths in a market that belongs to suppliers and users of natural gas.

The second lesson is less a lesson than a warning: there are more Amaranths out there. A lot more. Like mountain climbers tied together over a dangerous precipice, one going over endangers not simply the next one on the rope but the whole group. Because hedge funds have counterparties (people on the other side of every bet) others are necessarily involved. Because hedge funds are designed to reduce market risk, they are susceptible to huge losses when markets acts irrationally, such as when one unexpectedly goes tats up. Because their presence in numbers causes markets to act irrationally, they guarantee their own destruction eventually.

Most people, possibly rightly, will look at the death of Amaranth, like the death of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund a few years ago, and simply shrug it off, glad that it was simply a few rich investors who lost their money. They may even enjoy the fact that the Federal Reserve might have to flood the market with liquidity (as it did following LTCM), lowering interest rates in the short term. But according to the Fed there is more than $300 trillion worth of derivitave exposure "out there," tied together with every pension and mortgage in the nation several times over. That's equivalent to 30 years' worth of everything created and consumed in the US.

That's a lot of dominoes.

One down.

Male Restroom Etiquette

No matter what, don't talk in the loo

Total Credit Market Debt

The thing to remember about that big jump in the 30s is that it was due to GDP imploding, not debt levels rising...in other words, that debt ratio was an effect of depression. We are not currently in one, but we have never, ever, ever had anything remotely resembling the current economic silly season. Yet as sure as 2+2=4, you can only accumulate so much debt before the interest can't be paid from current income.

Then you get this:

Metro Atlanta foreclosures up 36 percent
Tennessee foreclosures up slightly in August
California foreclosures up 25 percent
Arizona foreclosures up 27%
Foreclosures Up Sharply In Maine
Massachusetts foreclosures up 56 percent from last year

and more to come...

UPDATE:

On CNN.com there's a story in which economists argue about whether the coming recession will present a "hard" landing or a "soft" one. Of course, neither they nor I have any idea, so there's not much sense in arguing about it.

But there's a lot of sense in clicking thru to it and watching the video (bottom right of the page) subtitled, "Families across the U.S. are trying to avoid foreclosure." Pay close attention to how this family bought a $100k house on which they now owe 3x that. They are represented in the above chart. So are millions of their and your neighbors. There is simply no way out for these people now that house prices are falling. No way out.

UPDATE the Second:

Peter Schiff offers a couple of well-deserved callouts here. It is essential to remember that the vast majority of "experts" you see on TV are salesmen. You can't create a bubble that big without a lot of hot air...

Take Back the Park

The Treehad continues

We squirrels really like to play,
And we like to catch some rays,
Please don't kill us this we pray,
We're cute and harmless anyway,
-- Beastly Boys, "Squirrels"

It seems lately the squirrels are taking back the park and, unlike feminists who annually take back the night, this time they intend to keep it:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- An aggressive squirrel pounced on a 4-year-old boy in an attack last week in Cuesta Park in Mountain View, Calif.

The attack happened as the boy's mother unwrapped a muffin during a picnic.

The boy had to get rabies shot after the attack. He is still getting the shots.

The attack is not the first one reported at the park.

Now the squirrels' behavior is probably a direct result of a) people feeding them, and b) the city installing squirrel-proof trash cans, leading to a furry-tailed cornucopia of hungry rodents, but the response is predictable: the city wants to trap and kill them, and the treehuggers threatening the Treehad will continue.

Watch out for those little buggers. They may pretend to be cute and harmless, but if you do doubt your strength or your courage come no further, for death awaits you all with big, sharp, pointy teeth...

Why Schools Need More Money

Reason 5150 why our public schools are underfunded:

It doesn’t seem like a prim-and-proper white poodle should cause such a fuss, but Lakeside Elementary’s school pet, Buddy, has some parents questioning the principal’s allocation of funds to the dog’s expenses.

According to the CISD Chief Financial Officer Ralph Seely, a total of $2,331 has been spent on Buddy, all from the activity fund or donations from the “Buddy Box” under the principal’s discretionary control. More than $1,200 of that was for a hip surgery to correct an injury Buddy sustained riding in (Principal) Lukert’s car...

According to Seely, no district guidelines have been broken.

On a completely unrelated note, $2,331 is just about the amount I will pay to send my oldest foster daughter to a private school for this entire school year.

A Fake Solution to a Real Problem

The Financial Times lets us in

on the fake solution for a real problem:

Oil exporting countries may consider a cut in output after crude prices fell below $60 a barrel on Monday for the first time in six months...

Ministers from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries ... have discussed the prospect of trimming production ahead of the oil cartel’s next ministerial meeting in Nigeria in December, according to Opec officials.

The oil price fall over the past month has been accompanied by investor selling in oil and other commodity markets, mainly on concerns that economic growth in the US is slowing.

“There is a concern by hedge funds that oil and commodities are no longer the one-way bet they once were,” said an Opec official.

Remove the word "accompanied by investor selling" above and replace it with "driven by investor selling" and you'll be a lot closer to the truth. The oil market is becoming dominated by investors and hedge funds - call them IHFs - rather than those who actually produce or refine oil. As such it is losing the ability to function as a market. That's why prices went so high last month and will move so low next. And while it's not good for producers, it's even worse for consumers.

The reason is this: prices in the market act as a signal to both producers and consumers. When prices are high, the former produce more and the latter consume less. The situation reverses itself when prices are low. Everyone knows that, because that's how it's supposed to work. It does not always work that way, and for reasons I explained here, it is not working that way in the oil market today. When the market ceases to function, physical shortages are nearly always the result in the long term.

But given that the current drop in price is not caused by a glut of oil but rather by a glut of selling contracts, what would an actual production decline, which can take 6 months to fully implement and another 6 to fully reverse, result in? Shortages, even if the price is low, because low prices mean more demand and less supply. Paper contracts can be printed for next to nothing and the market can be flooded with them so long as the momentum is maintained, but once you uncouple the actual commodity supply/demand from the price it is nearly impossible to recouple them without some kind of market default. That would be, to put it in technical terms, "bad."

That means that a production cut is the wrong solution for OPEC to take, because the problem is not too much oil. Luckily for us, they know it is the wrong solution and are signaling it by blaming IHFs for the decline. They may talk about a cut. They may even annouce a cut. But if they are as samrt as they appear to be there will not be a cut, because they are able to sell all they produce (and more) even at high prices.

OPEC is simply using words to mold expectations, announcing a cut to induce people to stop selling contracts. They are implementing a fake solution to a non-problem, which will hopefully turn out to be the real solution to the real problem.

Conservative Fiscal Responsibility

Maybe she's right for the wrong reasons, but Sue Gamble is still right:

Topeka — The Kansas State Department of Education has issued $32,000 in federal grant funds to individuals and groups in recent weeks to help start charter schools, according to state records...

None of the vendors who submitted applications before the Aug. 21 deadline was rejected, department officials said.

“These are just apparently individuals who walked off the street and said, ‘We like charter schools, can you give us some money?’” (KSBoE member Sue) Gamble said.

But department officials said they were confident in the quality of the grant recipients.

Rather than the unlikely accident that all 16 applications for the $2000 grants were of such high caliber that each deserved free money from the taxpayers, what really happened was this: "Education department officials said they discovered this summer they had to expend the federal grant funds quickly or lose them due to an oncoming deadline. They said they solicited grant applications and reviewed them all before awarding funds."

You have to admit, it was a nice bonus that they reviewed them before writing the checks.

All seriousness aside, this episode is exhibitive of how government truly works and explains why no amount of conservative (especially of the GOP brand) electioneering will change the fact. One level of government pinches a bit of your money, then passes it off to another - ostensibly for a good, conservative purpose and with a few nominal strings attached. That second level of government, since they did not raise the money, has every incentive to spend it whether it meets the purpose or not. In fact for government, any spending is preferable to not spending because they may never get the chance again...if money is not spent, budgets are cut and power is not accumulated. No government can long stand that. Conservatives barely pretend to try any more.

That's why at the same time GWB is crowing about cutting the deficit (while at the same time both misstating and misdefining it), total federal spending this year is up 9%, a number not reached since his dear pappy was President. And it's why conservatives are guaranteed to waste just as much money as liberals. The KSBOE is conservative. They appointed a conservative head of schools who loves charter schools. And when free money came their way from GWB's federal government, they wrote a check to every single person who asked for it, not because they would actually help charter schools but because the money needed to be spent.

The fact that it was just little chunks of waste does not comfort me, for a person - or a movement - who can't be trusted in small things cannot be trusted in large ones.

Schoolhouse Rock

I aced it, but only because I watch cartoons.



Seriously, I'm watching "Shot Heard 'round the World," burning some time before my American Revolution exam, when I heard this:

Now the ride of Paul Revere
set the nation on its ear
and the shot at Lexington heard 'round the world...

And I'm like "Lexington?" That's not right... check my notes. They say "Concord." OK, so which is it?

Upon further review, it turns out the Brits were heading to Concord to arrest the Massachusetts assembly and capture some weapons. But on the way there, they got into a firefight at Lexington and killed 8 Americans. After they reached Concord, the Americans chased their redcoat asses all the way back to Boston, killing or wounding half of the 700 soldiers.

So if I hadn't been watching Schoolhouse Rock, I'd have gotten that one wrong. As it was, I aced that sucker...

Flies are like thieves

Regarding the Fly Dispenser, I took shutyourface's advice:

you need to trap it....bait and everything.

it's a little known fact about flies. they HATE being trapped. almost as much as they hate being killed.

and if you do it, use something made of glass. that is another thing they hate. they hate when people can see that they are trapped. so you should hang it up somewhere everyone can notice. and make sure guests point and laugh at it.

and when the bastard finally completes his life...which should be any minute now....you should do what i do to all little insects i find annoying me in my house. place the dead in the middle of a room so all the other critters know you mean business.

I took the Highlander fly alive - a feat he shall forever regret - thinking that perhaps pain and humiliation might repay the debt he had so shamelessly accrued. As I pulled the cork from a new bottle of wine I realized that, alas, it would not - but I went straight to work nonetheless.

I opened my wife's sewing box and removed the tools of my new trade: pins of various sizes and threads of many weights and colors. His fear was palpable as I approached him, staring at me through his unblinking compound eyes. His wings twittered, though he held them close aside. He did not react visibly to my laughter, the timbre of which I can only describe as maniacal.

A fly has many appendages suitable for tying, and I roped and pinned each until he resembled a tiny Gulliver bound to a beach of cork. Not once did he cry out, instead suffering his debasement stoically (I respected him for that all the more, yet it did not change my intentions). I stood the cork on end, he crucified atop it, and I mocked him loudly. Taking up the swatter, I swung it with both hands like a flat, plastic sword. Closer and closer I came. His head turned, following it, and with each pass his wings quivered slightly, though from fear or from the wind of the swatter's passing I could not discern. He was in my power, his humiliation complete, and I basked in the glory of my conquest.

I do not know how long I laughed and swatted, dancing like some mad dervish about my kitchen, but at last his struggle ceased. I was tired, thirsty. Sweat stood out on my forehead. I'm not some James Bond fool-villain, so I ensured that he was dead by various methods I considered thorough, though I shall not describe them - there are some things which should forever remain in shadow. Then sated in my victory, I left the kitchen, a new spring in my step.

When I returned, there stood a live fly atop the cork and I cried out. HOW CAN THIS BE? Gathering my wits I took a closer look. Yes, my fly was dead, but another stood above him, eating out the entrails of his departed comrade.

There is truly no honour among flies.

I'm sorry, sweetheart.

Todd doesn't like it when I'm brutally honest. Then again, we're all in a brutal business:

"I always get a little ticked when people refer to social security as a ponzi scheme... The young taking care of the old sounds a lot better."

Of course it sounds better, but the problem is that that's exactly what the design of SocSec is, its intentions notwithstanding.

In a proper Ponzi, those in early get paid by money coming in from those who join later, or as the SEC says, "...the Ponzi scheme continues to work on the 'rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul' principle, as money from new investors is used to pay off earlier investors..." SocSec says, "Social Security is largely a "pay-as-you-go" system with today's taxpayers paying for the benefits of today's retirees."

The Ponzi also promises that the money is at work, generating returns, but "Profits to investors are not created by the success of the underlying business venture but instead are derived ... from the capital contributions of other investors." SocSec says "Money not needed to pay today's benefits is invested in special-issue Treasury bonds," which just means the government has spent the money and will tax others in the future to pay the interest.

The reason the Ponzi collapses is because it is actuarially unsound: at some point, the money coming in is not enough to support returns to the people who have already paid in. It is a self-contained financial bubble, and in SocSec, the movement of the bubble can be clearly seen. In 1950, 16 workers paid in for what was paid out to each retiree. Today that number is 3.3. It will eventually be 2-1, then 1-1. Benefits will be cut long before then. That point is the breaking of the promise, the popping of the bubble, the collapse of the pyramid. Or as SocSec itself says, "Social Security is not sustainable over the long term at present benefit and tax rates without large infusions of additional revenue. There will be a massive and growing shortfall..." It is pictured above.

Now in all fairness, since the last time Social Security was 'saved' (1986?) it has claimed to be a "pay as you go" system, which is far more honest than calling it "insurance" because it's not remotely actuarially sound. But the major differences between this ponzi and a 'normal' one are that the government has the ability to change benefit outlays by law, and the government's ponzi is does not add members by persuasion but by compulsion. They will use all available force to keep it from collapsing if they can help it. The only question is whether they can help it.

An 'attaboy' (or 'attagirl,' considering my surprisingly majority-female readership) to the first person to name the movie reference. I'd offer a silver dime, but Toxic Granny would pummel me.

Episode III

Episode III


Episide I
Episode II

Not as good as the first 2, but even Chad Vader is allowed to have a bad day now and then...

Cyber Sisters

Twisted Sisters

Cyber Sisters are an extremely fierce confederation of fighting females who act something like a shrill Greek chorus, echoing and amplifying one another's voice until their foes retreat in disarray. They are generally leaderless, but anyone who challenges one Cyber Sister can expect to be savagely attacked by the others. Only the most powerful and battle-hardened of Warriors is strong enough to weather a Cyber Sisters attack.

Find more flame warriors here.

Disloyalty

pwn3d by the money boyz

pwn3d by the money boyz

A funny thing happened on my way to retirement...actually I've still got decades to go, but since I've now been an official government employee (this time around) for almost a year, I just received the paperwork that will set me up in my very own "deferred compensation" retirement account (5.5% of salary mandatory contribution, 8.5% donated by the fine taxpayers of this state). But since it's going to be many moons before I can spend the money, I need a place to keep it. So do you. So does everyone. And it sucks.

The reason it sucks is that while there are 4 companies I may choose from, and while each company has many financial offerings (not unlike how each sack has seven cats), by the time I get to St. Ives there are only 2 choices: I can buy stocks or I can buy bonds. No, not even that. I can buy shares in a stock fund or shares in a bond fund.

Unlike being an actual shareholder, when you own shares in a stock fund you do not really own part of the company, nor do you control anything. If you buy real stocks - even a single share - you have the right to go to the annual company meeting, say your piece, vote your shares, and they have to listen to you because you own the company. But who owns the company with your money in a fund? The people who control the fund. They are probably people who golf with the company management; they are tame, rock not the boat, ask no hard questions - and they never, ever complain about excessive executive compensation.

Bond funds are worse, because you must lend your money to others to use in stupid and destructive ways while inflation eats it away, only to be renumerated in taxable, below-market after-fee interest.

There are no options for gold funds, no oil trust shares, no actual assets of any type. There is nothing 'real' you can buy with your money, and should this decade resemble the 70s even remotely, all the options available will lose money, or at least buying power.

This is exactly the same problem I see with GWB's Social Security "personal accounts." Though El Presidente and his conservative cohorts say you have control, you don't; you simply have a choice of which managers are going to control the things you nominally own. You may have 30 choices of places to put your money, but they come down to two: either the fund managers use it to run Wall Street or they lend it to Wall Street. We are pwn3d by the money boyz.

And they wouldn't have it any other way.

Might as well vote

Captain Capitalism forgets a few things

Captain Capitalism forgets a few things

Excellent post from Captain Capitalism on oil prices. I suggest you read it all. However, there are a few things he does not include, so I'll take it upon myself to add them. He writes:

Now, I know, I know, you understand how the price of gas works; SUPPLY AND DEMAND. I understand this. And anybody with Jello for a brain will understand this, but for your standard leftists who really doesn’t have a brain, just more really a brain stem actually and is only capable of rote rehearsal and knee-jerk thinking, thus making them susceptible to conspiracy theories I’ve compiled a list here of reasons why gas prices have come down;

1. GDP has slowed slightly from its previous break neck speed of 5.9% down to 2.9% thereby lowering demand for oil.

2. BP’s oil pipeline problems are not as severe as they previously thought.

3. This minor discovery of oil in the Gulf of Mexico that potentially could boost US reserves by 50%.

4. Summer driving season is over.

Understand when you pose these figures/facts to your hot air socialist friends a set of behaviors will occur;

1. They’ll shut up for a couple seconds.
2. The next word out of their mouths will be "Well."
As in "well…ummm…you know…"
Or as in "well, that’s uhhh…because…" since they don't know what to say because their brain just got served.

3. They will inevitably ignore the glaring evidence you’ve pointed to in front of them as being irrelevant and denying the truth.

4. They will then move on to another topic of conversation.

As usual, Captain Capitalism is 100% accurate in everything he says here. But there's one problem, and that is that his reasons do not fully explain the precipitous 33% drop in gasoline prices. Let's look at them individually:

1. GDP has slowed slightly from its previous break neck speed of 5.9% down to 2.9% thereby lowering demand for oil.

GDP *growth* has slowed, but that does not reduce the demand for oil. The increase of 5.9% has slowed to an increase of 2.9%, but it's still an increase. Demand has not been lowered, just increased at a lesser pace. Think of a Congressional spending cut and you'll have the idea.

2. BP’s oil pipeline problems are not as severe as they previously thought.

This is a partial reason that we will address below, but BP still has problems and will still not produce what they did 6 months ago. It is less of a decrease in supply than expected, but it is still a decrease in supply.

3. This minor discovery of oil in the Gulf of Mexico that potentially could boost US reserves by 50%.

Yes it could, but a potential increase in reserves is not increased supply any more than next year's raise puts food on your table today.

4. Summer driving season is over.

This is right on and *does* result in decreased demand, but enough to lower the price 33%? My guess is that it's good for $.30, closer to the normal fall price drop.

The one factor that Captain Capitalism does not include is that supply and demand for physical gasoline are not the only factors in the gas market, just as supply and demand for physical gold are not the only factors in the gold market. Both markets are essentially paper markets, where contracts can be purchased but which are neither delivered nor received - they are rolled over with a cash settlement - and we must account for the momentum player (or speculator) who buys contracts because he expects the price to go up. The momentum player is not buying gasoline, but gas contracts, paper gasoline if you will, and he may be a retirement fund, a hedge fund, or an individual. His purchases have little to do with *actual* demand, but with expectations for how the contract itself will move. Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy if you will.

The way it works is this: commodity markets work about 50% (a liberal estimate) on physical supply and demand and 50% on expected supply and demand. When a speculator expects that gas will continue to rise, he may buy a contract to sell later at a higher price, and his buying affects the market, causing the price to rise. As the price of gas continues to rise, the expectation that it will continue to rise grows along with the number of speculators in the market. The net result is that the market moves higher than it would were it simply a physical supply/demand equasion. The speculator adds volatility to the market.

When the market begins to drop (because of the changing expectations brought about by 2) and 3), the speculators sell their contracts and go short, removing this artificial demand and artificially increasing supply, causing the price to drop further than it would were we just dealing with a physical market.

Supply and demand has not changed all that much (except #4 where it was expected) and where it has changed actual supply is still dropping and actual demand still rising, so the price should still rise over the long term. However, the expected rise has been overdone in the short term, like gold in May, and so the price drops precipitously though the fundamentals continue to improve. Once it bottoms it will be a good time to buy small oil stocks.

So a 5) must be added to explain the price drop: the *expectation* that prices would continue to rise has faded, resulting in a glut of paper offers to sell gasoline, including naked shorts, which affects the price of those contracts that are eventually delivered and then pumped into your tank.

Enjoy the low prices while they last. The US economy is still growing, as is that of China and India, so physical demand will still rise. The BP problems still exist and infrastructure is still topped out, so supply is still steady to falling. The Gulf discovery will take years to exploit, so it has no effect on actual supply, only expected supply.

We'll drop down, and in a few months (the gold correction has been on for 5 so far) the fundamentals will re-assert themselves and we'll start rising again. Maybe not as far or as fast, but the longer the rise, the greater the expectation of continued rise, so the farther we'll overshoot where actual supply and demand would take us.

Of course, that will be after the election which, should it cause the GOP to retain Congress, will itself give rise to a completely new market in conspiracy theories. I'd go short that one, because the potential payoff is pretty slim.

UPDATE 9/26:

The Financial Times reaches the same conclusion:

The oil price fall over the past month has been accompanied by investor selling in oil and other commodity markets, mainly on concerns that economic growth in the US is slowing.

“There is a concern by hedge funds that oil and commodities are no longer the one-way bet they once were,” said an Opec official.

I would say 'driven' rather than 'accompanied' by investor selling, but the important point is that investors, especially hedge funds, are not part of the 'normal' supply and demand equasion, and when they become major players in the market, that causes a completely different set of problems that are worth a post of their own.

Freedom of thought

Freedom of Thought, Turkey-style

ANKARA, Turkey (Reuters) -- Employees of the state body that organizes Muslim worship in Turkey asked the authorities on Tuesday to open legal proceedings against Pope Benedict XVI and to arrest him when he visits the country in November.

...They said the pontiff had violated Turkish laws upholding freedom of belief and thought by "insulting" Islam and the Prophet Mohammed.

Autumn Massacre

Let the Autumn Massacre begin

What happened in 1000bc?

CNN.COM says we were come-come-coming of age...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An ancient slab of green stone inscribed with insects, ears of corn, fish and other symbols is indecipherable so far, but one message is clear: It is the earliest known writing in the Western Hemisphere.

The ancient Olmec civilization probably produced the faintly etched symbols around 900 B.C., or roughly three centuries before what previously had been proposed as the earliest examples of writing in the Americas...

OK, so here's what's bugging me about this. Olmec writing in 900bc? No sweat. I would be very surprised if they were able to build the culture they did without it. They made lots of big head statues, built complicated buildings, grew some corn. Olmec are considered to be the progenitors of all later meso-American civilizations, lasting from ~1200 to ~400bc. They were the only advanced civilization in the Western hemisphere in their heyday.

But according to "the book" a bunch of stone age tribes crossed a Siberian land-bridge in 13,000 bc and spent 12,000 years wandering around until the people who made it the farthest (those in South America) suddenly lighted on art, agriculture, astronomy, mathematics, metallurgy, engineering, and a complicated, polytheistic pagan religion involving human sacrifice. Does that make any sense? The fact that we have no documentary evidence and I'm having a heck of a time finding source material makes me think the story is simply made up. Like the ~70 million inhabitants of the Western hemisphere when Columbus arrived, everybody knows it but no one knows how we know it.

It's not just South America. According to the Harvard Gazette, modern man has been roaming around for 90,000 years. We spent the first 85,000 of those digging for roots and eating bugs, then in the last 5k we created the modern world, including digital watches, which some people still think are a pretty neat idea. The more I study history, the more I think Douglas Adams had it right: Earth is a science project funded by mice.

But to answer the question posed above is probably something I'll spend the next few years on. In ~1500ad, the modern world began (Discovery of America, moveable type in Europe). In ~1000, the Middle Ages began (Moveable type in China, rise of Feudal kingdoms in Europe). In ~500 the Dark Ages began (~476, Fall of Rome). Around ~0, the single most important events in history occurred. Around ~500bc, the learning of the Greeks peaked (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) and burned out and the Jews were scattered to Babylon. In ~1000bc, the Olmecs invented writing, Troy fell, Brutus landed in Britain, David sat on a throne in Jerusalem.

What remains to be seen is whether the mind naturally gathers things into 500 year periods, finding patterns where there are none, or whether there really is a cycle at work here. If there is, the years following 2000 ought to prove interesting as we move into an age very different than what we have just endured.

If not, I still need to figure out why humanity has spent 95% of its time eating bugs when the modern world was just waiting to be built.

Liberty Dollars

I'll accept them anyway

WASHINGTON — The government Thursday warned consumers and businesses that it is illegal to use alternative money known as "Liberty Dollar" coins, which organizers promote as a competitor to the almighty dollar.

"We don't want consumers to be fooled," U.S. Mint spokeswoman Becky Bailey says, noting U.S. Attorneys offices across the USA have noticed a marked increase in inquiries about the coins.

The coins' producers vowed to fight the government's decision...

In all honesty, the government here has hit on the one thing that always bothered me about the Liberty Dollar: the potential for people to try to pass them off to people who do not know what they are. They are rightly trying to protect consumers from entering into a transaction where their lack of knowledge will result in them being taken advantage of. In other words, they are preventing fraud.

I've spoken to Bernard von NotHaus, the "Monetary Architect" of the Liberty Dollar, and heard his spiel. Hell, I even have an autographed copy of his book. I'm convinced he is an honest and honorable man. But I never joined NORFED because I was also convinced that the way Liberty Dollars were spent into circulation was ripe for abuse.

Liberty Dollars are not United States money; they are a private, silver-backed (or silver-coin) currency. The problem is that people who buy them from NORFED at less than "face" value have the incentive to try to pass them off as United States money, profiting from the difference. And that they do. Unfortunately, unless the recipient of that money has a place to spend those dollars, they simply hold silver certificates, not money. If you can't spend it, it's not money, even if it's silver. The fact that the Liberty Dollar has more intrinsic value than the US Dollar is irrelevant: if the recipient can't spent it, you have hosed him.

However, where the government can't (or at least they'll have to prosecute me to do so) make the Liberty Dollar illegal is in private, voluntary transactions where both parties know exactly what they are exchanging. My bookstore accepts (and will continue to accept) Liberty Dollars, just like we accept e-gold, Paypal, silver coins, foreign currency, and any private currency, just like I take personal checks. In fact, I prefer Liberty Dollars (you wanna give me silver? I'll take it) even though such is immediately a barter transaction rather than a cash transaction - it's a distinction without a difference except to the tax man.

The problem with the Liberty Dollar is not that it is dishonest; it's about the most honest money around. The problem is that a populace that is 99% ignorant about the true nature of money can be taken advantage of and be given "money" that they can't spend. It's dishonest to make money on that ignorance, and the government is correct to clarify its tender status, even while it's going overboard and beyond its authority to declare all Liberty Dollar transactions illegal.

It will be very difficult to uphold in court a promulgation that people can't use silver or silver certificates to trade. It will be a final nail in the coffin of real money if they manage to do so.

Good teams win the close games

Vikings 19
Panthers 16 (OT)

Good teams win the close ones

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Ryan Longwell caught the pitch, rolled right, let the ball go and connected with Vikings tight end Richard Owens for the game-tying score.

With Longwell's three field goals and a clutch touchdown pass on a fake -- plus a defense that forced nine punts -- the Vikings showed again that they don't need a flashy, high-flying offense to win.

Longwell's 16-yard toss to Owens, his first career touchdown pass, tied the game in the fourth quarter. Then his 19-yard kick with 7:25 left in overtime Sunday gave the Vikings a 16-13 victory over the Carolina Panthers.

Yes, Terrymum, I'm still glad they fired Tice. The difference is obvious. Though the Vikings have less talent than they had (especially on offense) during the days of the Culpepper/Moss connection, and though they are less flashy, less volatile, less explosive than those days, they are a better team. A good team wins the close games, and two weeks in a row the Vikings have upset teams that were pegged for the playoffs, both times with late drives for field goals. They put themselves in that position by not making mistakes, by managing the clock well (Tice held a master's from the Art Shell School of Timeout Mismanagement), and by making the plays that needed to be made.

These Vikings are not a great team. They'll probably lose this week to one. But they are a good team that does not waste opportunity, does not implode when the heat is on, does not kill their own drives through avoidable delays, and does not burn timeouts on ridiculous call challenges.

They give themselves every chance to win, and they are 2-0 because of it. When the good teams have a chance to win, they win. That's what being a winner is all about.

Blame

Trading Notes

Any system is better than no system

This is going to be a different kind of entry, so if you own no stocks and have no interest in trading stocks - especially gold stocks - feel free to skip it. You won't hurt my feelings, I promise. But I feel it necessary in light of an article I read tonight called, Please, proceed to the nearest exit. In it, I ran across something that relates to bw's question on conspiracy in the "Money Game" and also has to do with following your stock broker's recommendation:

But first, I must diffuse the “few bad apples” argument. In his book, The Pied Pipers of Wall Street: How Analysts Sell You Down the River, Benjamin Mark Cole notes that when it comes to Wall Street Analysts’ recommendations, the word “sell” is rarely, if ever, heard.

“Of 33,169 ‘buy,’ ‘sell,’ and ‘hold’ recommendations made by brokerage analysts in 1999, only 125 were pure sells. That means just 0.3 percent of recommendations were ‘sells,’ according to data put together by Zacks Investment Research. There were another 224 recommendations, or 0.7 percent, that could be interpreted as ‘sells,’ such as rankings with such tepid language as ‘market underperformer.’”

You can get good investment advice from your broker. He is often an expert worth listening to. But your broker's incentive is to get you to buy and hold stocks because his company's money is not usually made in commissions, but in helping companies issue stocks and bonds. Therefore your broker's advice is not a system that you will most likely profit from, but a system in which you will most likely accumulate a lot of stocks. That's good, of course, but profiting is better.

Any system you create, so long as it is designed to help you profit, will be better than simply following your broker's advice, which is really no "system" at all. Following your own system, even if it's not perfect, will do three things for you, all of which are necessary to make money over the long term: it will force you to be disciplined, it will force you to take profits, and (most importantly) it will force you to improve the system itself.

Before I start explaining one such system, there are a few things that must be said simply as a matter of priority. First things first. Before you buy gold stocks, buy some gold: the reasons that gold stocks might profit make it imperative that you have a little set aside. Before you buy any stocks, get your debt under control. Making taxable earnings in the market does you no good if you must pay those earnings out in credit card interest. Save your pennies, have a good handle on your budget, and since gold stocks are extremely volatile, only invest money that you can afford to lose. That doesn't mean money you don't care about, but it does mean money that you are not counting on to pay for food, clothing, or housing.

Now that you've done those things, here's one system (of literally millions):

1) Based on how much money you have to invest, choose a number of stocks and an amount ( a range, like $3k-$6k) you are willing to invest in each. Let's say you have $25k to start with (you can go less and probably will start with less, but just work with me). Pick 5 stocks and put $3k into each. That gives you 5 companies you expect will appreciate and $10k in cash. Cash is important as we will see later. Choose as many companies as you can reasonably follow (~5 for beginners) and learn what they do and how they do it. If you tell your broker your objectives, this is one place he may be able to help a lot.

2) When the value of one of those stocks hits the top of the range, sell enough to bring you safely back in range. The hardest part of any system is not picking stocks that will go up - all stocks go up and down - but profiting when they do. You must make yourself take profits, because selling a winner is not a natural act.

I hit this exact problem last week, when my Kinross Gold warrants took off. I had 5000 of them, and when they crossed the $6k level, I sold a chunk of them to bring me back in range. When they crossed again, I sold another chunk to keep me in range. I could have held them all, after all Kinross was on fire and it was hard to sell something that seemed to rise every day. But I'm glad I sold, because gold got whacked this week, dropping the value from $6k to ~$4k, Because I pocketed profits, the loss hurt me less than if I had ridden them all back down. Now I have cash to go back in at a lower price.

3) When the value of one of those stocks drops below $3k, re-evaluate the position. If you expect (not hope, EXPECT) it to recover, buy a chunk big enough to bring your holdings back into your range. Do not buy just because the price has dropped, but only when it has dropped out of your range. That will ensure that you are buying low and selling high. It will also ensure that you are constantly building cash, because stocks will naturally rise and fall and you'll spend less than you earn.

If you have no cash available, that is an indication that you need to adjust your system, either taking on fewer stocks or lowering your top ranges. You should try to keep at least 20% in cash for when you find the perfect deal, but you'll gain a comfort level yourself. Many of these numbers are not meaningful in themselves, they exist simply to help you build discipline. And market accidents happen. Holding cash will mean you are ready to buy when blood is running in the streets.

4) When the potential of a position is realized, sell even if it has not gone out of your range. I hit this today with Cambior warrants, and it's a good lesson. It was announced today that Cambior would be bought out for ~$4 a share. The warrants converted at $3 a share, making the potential of the warrants about $1 a share. The price was $1.17, so I sold them all. Once your potential is realized, it's time to find a new position. You have won the game, leave the field. Conversely if a position looks like it will never reach its potential, sell even if you must take a loss to do so. There are too many fish in the sea to hold the suckers and there is no shame in losing money on a trade. The only shame is losing more than you must.

5) Create your position size based on your comfort with the company. I have many stocks that are worth owning but are too dangerous to invest $5k in, so for them a range of $1k to $2k is appropriate. Others are larger because the companies are more stable or bigger or any number of reasons. The system should be modified so you can sleep at night. If you lay awake worried about the $3k you have in xyz company, either you know in your gut it's a bad investment or you are not cut out for this kind of investing. It's best to be honest with yourself early. Your nerves know what you can handle, follow them in the short term. Your tolerance will build as your experience does.

6) Have a pipeline of stocks you want to own and have a target date or price, but do not allow yourself to buy just because you have money - discipline again - study the companies and be patient. In my own case, I know of a natural gas company that is undervalued, is stocked up with cash, and has rising production. But natural gas is dropping. There is simply no need to buy it yet, and waiting builds discipline. When the natgas market turns up again, that will be the time to buy. The stock's price will likely be near its lows at that point as well.

Money is made in the buy (paying too much is profit lost) and in the sell (a stock that you don't sell brings no profit), and it is critical to watch both ends. A system can tell you when to sell or when to buy more, but it cannot make you open good positions. You'll need to do your own homework.

The purpose of this is not to illustrate a perfect system, for there isn't one. It's to illustrate that since you are on your own, you must construct a system that forces you to take profits and re-evaluate companies that you are not profiting from. Your broker is not in this business to make you rich; he's in it to make himself rich. Your profits are your own responsibility, and frankly, your greatest reward.

One final word about leverage: Don't. Never, never, never buy volatile stocks on margin, the money boys will clean you out. The only way to control your own destiny is to own your positions outright, unencumbered by any debt or margin. If you have margin, one bad day can force you to sell what you ought to be buying and can steal the earnings of many successful trades. If you absolutely must use leverage, buy long-term warrants, but learn the ropes before getting in the big ring. A fool and his money are soon parted, and an amateur with a margin account is a fool. Caveat Emptor.

Borat Movie or Borak Movie

I fail to see how this is our problem

LIFE STYLE EXTRA (UK) - Sacha Baron Cohen has prompted US President George Bush to host a White House summit, after angering the Kazakhstan government with his comic creation Borat.

The British star has infuriated Kazakhstan leaders with his latest movie, 'Borat: Cultural Learning of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan'.

Borat is portrayed as a backward, racist and sexist man who, in one of Cohen's previous comedy sketches, once sung "kill the Jews".

The first scene of Cohen's latest movie, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last week, shows Borat kissing his sister inappropriately before riding off in a horse-drawn car to explore the US.

Kazakhstan's President Nazarbayev now plans to fly to America to meet with President Bush to discuss his country's image.

While I'm sure President Bush is very interested in the effects a British comedian is having on the reputation of Kazakhstan [/sarcasm] I'm not sure that there's a whole lot he can do about it.

Be that as it may, since this site seems to be getting a lot of traffic searching for "Borak Movie," and since I have neither made nor starred in a movie , I conclude that Mr. Borat's endevor will be considered successful if it can result in his ever-growing fan base learning to spell his admittedly difficult name correctly.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Mr. Borat, I present his inimitable country and western masterpiece, "Throw the Jew Down the Well."




One thing I do need to ask is whether y'all (note the country and western slang there) see an "adblock" on the youtube movie. I have installed Adblock on this machine (it's a Firefox extension that blocks ads, duh) but it appears to think embedded movies might be ads.

UPDATE: Kazakhstan says the story is not true. Though the aforementioned summit will take place, Mr. Borat will apparently not be on the agenda. Too bad, it made for such a good story.

Burning down the house of God

The Talkingest Head of them all reviews "Jesus Camp":

There were some perfect sound bites — at one point Pastor Fischer instructs the little ones that they should be willing to die for Christ, and the little ones obediently agree. She may even use the word martyr, which has a shocking echo in the Middle East. I can see future suicide bombers for Jesus — the next step will be learning to fly planes into buildings. Of course, the grownups would say, “Oh no, we’re not like them” — but they admit that the principal difference is simply that “We’re right.”

Generally I would (and should) listen to David Byrne on religion about as much as he would (and should) listen to me on music. While everyone has an opinion it is a modern myth that all of them are equal; I don't know dick about music and my opinion is worth nothing.

And while I suspect "Jesus Camp" is to liberals what "Friday the 13th" and "Saw" are to teenagers - a chance to enjoy the adrenaline rush of fear, to mock the stupid, and to swear that they would do better in such a situation - I found Byrne's vision of Christianity (whether portrayed accurately in the film or not) to be breathtaking in its ignorance.

People were dying for Christ for centuries before Islam came on the scene, as they are in places like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan where it today rules and in China and North Korea where modern atheists attempt to build a man-centered economic paradise. For them, martydom is not hypothetical, but a cost/benefit equasion that must be faced every day.

If there is a command of Jesus that a Christian must follow above all it is the very one that modern Americans find so outrageous: that a Christian must be willing to die for Jesus as we believed he died for us, that following Jesus means that he owns everything we have and are and that when he asks for them, we must be willing to offer them back. We must be willing to take up a cross in order to follow. We must count the cost of serving Christ, and that cost may include our lives. Frankly, we Americans are willing to die (or even to suffer discomfort) for so few things that entertaining the very idea that one might be called upon to die voluntarily makes one a potential suicide bomber in the minds of many. Thus far do we Americans imagine nothing more important than our lives. We remember the heroes - and we are blessed with many - but we seldom understand them.

I thought about this quite a bit when the video aired of the two Fox journalists who were kidnapped in Beirut "converted" to Islam, and realized that were I one of them I certainly would have requested that the other guy convert first. Not because I'd want him to face the danger, but were he not a Christian, to ensure that he was safe. Because I could under no circumstances agree to such a thing and perhaps they would spare him even as they sawed my head off to post on Youtube. I don't write this to brag that I could do so - in fact, I wonder very much if I could - but to say that such is what is required of the Christian.

Therein lies the "principal difference," Byrne notwithstanding, between Christians and those who fly planes into buildings: Jihadist Moslems expect to be rewarded for taking others with them when they go, but the Christian who is martyred meets his lord alone. As Jesus said in Revelation, "He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity: he that kills with the sword must die by the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints." Christian martyrdom is not a battle to be fought for God's glory but a public testimony, with one's own blood as a witness, that the war is already won.

There's like a full crowd scene at the food line

Wait a minute, there's no birthday party for me here!

Pressure is building on Ontario's anti-smoking police to give Hollywood star Jeff Spicoli a ticket after he was pictured lighting up at a news conference.

"He should be charged," Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson said today at his own news conference to herald the first 100 days of the province's tough new anti-smoking law...

Critics said it will appear the new Smoke-Free Ontario Act, which outlaws smoking in indoor public spaces, doesn't apply to the rich and famous unless something is done.

I think the Canadians, being the progressive and forgiving people they are, ought to stop adding to Mr. Spicoli's already considerable stress levels. Besides, it's George Bush's fault that he can't quit smoking anyway.

Happy Birthday Bethie

Better than mustard gas I guess

Don't overcook the Moonbats

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before being used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.

The object is basically public relations. Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions from others about possible safety considerations, said Secretary Michael Wynne.

"If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation," said Wynne. "(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press."

So it's better to condition the US military to blast American citizens than it is to get criticized by Le Monde? I think he should be vilified in the world press anyway - or at least subjected to scorn, mockery, and derision - because a person who is more concerned about his worldwide renown than he is about testing weapons on the citizens of his own country should not be allowed near a pair of scissors, much less high-technology crowd control devices. And armed forces that test their weapons on domestic crowds is the province of totalitarianism. Seems to me that there's some dictator on trial for the same thing right now.

I wonder if he would say of mustard gas, depleted-uranium shells, and pinpoint nukes that if we are not willing to use them against "our fellow citizens" that we should not use them in a wartime situation. After all, if someone got hurt, we wouldn't want the French to make fun of us.

Or did I miss the memo where reputation is what the armed forces are primarily charged with protecting?

And most of them are lying

Fly Dispenser

There's a (one, singular) fly in my kitchen. I killed him twice before I left for work this morning and my lovely wife assures me she killed him at least four times while I was listening to the Vikings beat the Redskins on my way home tonight. I killed him when I got home, and when I just went upstairs he was there again, flying around the sink. I let him live this time. Why fight it?

Now either there is a Highlander fly who has decided that perpetually harassing me somehow advances the unknowable purposes of the universe or there is a secret machine in my kitchen that dispenses a single living fly each time I kill one off. For the life of me, I can't figure out which it is.

Barbie says math is hard

Barbie says math is hard

But it's apparently even harder for bureaucrats:

More than 5,000 terrorists have been captured or killed in the five years since the 9/ll attacks, CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden said today...

Since (9/11), he said, "Al-Qa'ida's core operational leadership has been decimated, and their successors are in hiding or on the run."

Since 5000 "terrorists" have been killed, there must have been 5000 more terrorists in the world 5 years ago than there are today, right? So what were they all doing then? Seriously, don't you have to actually commit terrorism to be a terrorist? Where are the acts of terror that these terrorists committed before we killed them? 19 of them were busy over New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, though I doubt even the CIA would have the audacity to call them killed or captured. That's like saying Patton was stopped in Berlin.

One can only assume Hayden is correct when he claims that Al Qaiada's core operational leadership is still 90% functional. And it's possibly true that Al Qaeda is hiding or on the run - we're pretty sure they're hiding in south Afghanistan.

But I wonder if Hayden has problems with math here, because with X - 5000 terrorists now around, and the fact that we knocked over the Taliban when there were X terrorists in the world, stuff like this should not be in the news:

SOME OF America’s closest Nato allies have abandoned Washington on the key battleground of the War on Terror, the bloody struggle against Islamic militants for control of southern Afghanistan.

Five years after the world stood “shoulder to shoulder” with America in the aftermath of 9/11, The Times has learnt that many of the countries that pledged support then have now ignored an urgent request for more help in fighting a resurgent Taleban and its al-Qaeda allies.

Turkey, Germany, Spain and Italy have all effectively ruled out sending more troops. France has not committed itself either way, but the military sources in Kabul said that there were no expectations that the French would contribute to a new battlegroup...

It seems to me that either a lot of those 5000 weren't terrorists or we're creating terrorists faster than we can kill them off. But at 1000 a year, we're making great progress. At least that's what the math tell us.

Discovery

...and then again, it might not

The Wichita Eagle expected to sleep thru the game:

Independence (1-1, 0-0) at Fort Scott (0-2, 0-1), 7 -- This game might set offensive strategy back years. In four games this season, the Pirates and Greyhounds have combined to score 20 points. The lone victory came when Indy beat Air Force Prep 7-0 in a game where the teams averaged 2.2 yards over 133 combined plays.

It actually turned out to be a pretty good game, which Fort Scott won 28-21 after leading by three touchdowns at halftime. Since Nick is in the band, I went to this game rather than taking the box seats for PSU's 89-0 win over Panhandle State (no, I'm not kidding). Greg Cross looked very sharp at QB, the defense grabbed enough turnovers to cover up for their fatigue, and FSCC wins their first game in 2 years.

It had to be the band...

Follow the Money

bw asks a good question

On the conspiracy thing - would you consider the "money situation", about which you are quite obviously knowledgable, a conspiracy?

"A" conspiracy? No. But there are many smaller conspiracies within it.

One could argue, for example, that the Creature from Jekyll Island was formed by a conspiracy. It's simply a fact of history that certain bankers met in 1910 on a small private island off the coast of Georgia and plotted out the Federal Reserve, that the bank was pushed thru a Congress that was not fully informed of its implications, and that the American public, if it had truly understood those implications, would never have supported it.

One could also argue that the modifications to government jobs numbers, GDP, and inflation figures are a conspiracy. Someone or sometwo had to think them up, promote them, implement them, and they worked in secret to do so. Perhaps they understood the implications (which was why they were doing it) and perhaps others went along because it was in their interest to do so. Most people don't realize that just by living in their houses they contribute to GDP - they are counted as having rented their houses from themselves - and such a unique accounting is done mostly for the purpose of making our economic numbers look better and therefore helping politicians get re-elected.

One could also argue that currency and gold markets are, if not controlled, at least influenced by conspiracy. When governments buy and sell currency and metals to affect exchange rates or perceptions, they are acting secretly in a way that certainly affects the fortunes of others in the markets, and since they are the biggest players they effectively control the market while at the same time making plenty of free-market noises. The Working Group on Financial Markets (a.k.a. the "Plunge Protection Team) is a team of government employees who are designated to prevent market crashes. By intruding in the market, they enrich some at the expense of others. They do not report their activities to the public.

The groups and individuals who carry out the above act secretly, but for the most part they do not act unlawfully. They act in their own interest, but they do so using (or abusing) lawful power. So are they conspiracies? Sure, let's assume they are.

Now, are they part of the same conspiracy? There may very well be individuals who understand the implications of all of the above (I am not among them) and who act in concert with what they expect those conspiracies will do -- and I have no doubt certain well-heeled individuals or companies receive advance notice before they do it. There are certainly companies - especially money center banks - that profit immensely from the financial shenanigans of the above three. But I do not believe they are part of one grand, clean conspiracy to enslave Americans. I do not believe that there is a multi-generational, transnational, Rothschild-driven plan to undermine baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet, or to turn America into a modern-day medieval duchy.

People in government act in their own interest (rationally) even if to do such a thing is immoral. So when people look at those things and see that they are all taking one direction - that of turning America into a modern-day medieval duchy - they understandably assume that it is part of one grand plan.

"They all have the same effect, that of enslaving people," is the accusation. The question one has to ask, however, is whether enslaving people is the goal, or whether it is simply a consequence of acting rationally but immorally in the short term. For example, if I rob you, am I trying to take your money or am I trying to make you poor? If I want to make you poor, taking your money is a good way to accomplish that, and one could plausibly argue that I'm trying to make you poor when I rob your house. But in reality, as soon you as another. The thief generally does not have it in for you personally, he just wants some money. It's very easy to create fancilful scenarios to illustrate grand conspiracies, but reality tends to be more mundane than that. They just want some money.

So are there conspiracies involved in the money situation? Absolutely. A few are illegal, most are immoral. But are they all part of one? Speaking just for me, I don't think people are smart enough to organize such a thing.

AJ Styles

I danced with my little girl to this song at her wedding reception

...and this is the only way I can get her to watch my favorite rassler...

Freeze Gopher

Whaddya mean, 'not a recreational device'?

DENVER - Colorado's Wildlife Commission voted Thursday to allow private landowners to control prairie dog populations by using an explosive device.

Many farmers and ranchers were hoping commissioners would make it legal to use a device called the Rodenator.

It blows an explosive mix of propane and oxygen into a burrow. A spark then ignites the gases.

"I think it's important for people to know this is not a recreational device. This is a device for agricultural producers here in Colorado," said Division of Wildlife spokesperson Tyler Baskfield.

Most people don't realize that under Kansas law, farmers have to kill moles, prairie dogs, and gophers and can incur liability if the little bast...rodents destroy a neighbor's field or crop. Poisoning the little bast...rodents is bad for the environment, injecting them with hormones is a bad idea unless you like cheesy movies, shooting them with high-powered rifles is cumbersome and ineffective (though I have heard it might be considered "recreational" by some). Perhaps blowing them to smithereens will be an effective way to control them, though it didn't work in Caddyshack. Much.

deadly nurse

Hurray for Susan

PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) -- A nurse returning from work discovered an intruder armed with a hammer in her home and strangled him with her bare hands, police said.

Susan Kuhnhausen, 51, ran to a neighbor's house after the confrontation Wednesday night. Police found the body of Edward Dalton Haffey 59, a convicted felon with a long police record...

Haffey, about 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds, had convictions including conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, robbery, drug charges and possession of burglary tools. Neighbors said Kuhnhausen's size -- 5-foot-7 and 260 pounds -- may have given her an advantage.

"Everyone that I've talked to says 'Hurray for Susan,' said neighbor Annie Warnock, who called 911...

Oregon is one of those "barbaric" states in which a person has a right to defend themselves, even to use deadly force, so thankfully Susan won't face any charges for taking out the trash on this one. But I'm frankly confused by those people who oppose laws that protect people who protect themselves. According to them:

“Everyone understands wanting to protect yourself from people who attack you but that’s not good enough for the Kentucky legislature (and the NRA who gives them their allowance).

They want you to be able to legally kill someone you think may attack you, might want to steal your car, hit you last week, heck, they want to give you the right to shoot the damned kids that cut through your garden. And the police can’t arrest you and the family of the deceased can’t sue you. All you have to say to murder legally in Kentucky would be, ‘I felt threatened.’”

So I looked at the Kentucky law (similar to that in Oregon and recently passed in Kansas) to discover exactly who is protected by it:

(1) A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:

(a) The person against whom the defensive force was used was in the process of unlawfully and forcibly entering or had unlawfully and forcibly entered a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or if that person had removed or was attempting to remove another against that person's will from the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle; and

(b) The person who uses defensive force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred.

In other words, those who are protected are victims of unlawful and forcible entry or attack. I doubt those who shoot "kids cutting through the garden" qualify. Those who shoot because they think someone "might want to steal their car" do not qualify. I'm sure Susan does qualify, and rightly so. The idea that you could be held criminally or civilly liable for protecting yourself is madness.

UPDATE: Interesting note in the "Licence to Murder" FAQ:

Q: ...Is there any real life evidence to back any of this up, or is it all hypothetical?

We wish it was all hypothetical.

In Florida, where this bill has already passed, James Behanna chased Robert Mears two blocks on foot, and then stabbed him in the back, killing him. Behanna's lawyers considered using "License to Murder" to get the charges against him dropped, because they said Mears had attacked Beheanna first. The judge eventually upheld the charges...

My goodness, someone's defense attorney "considered using" the law, but didn't. I would suspect that since a defense attorney's job is to get his client off the charges, and the charges were upheld, that the law didn't...freaking...apply. One wonders why this would serve as the first example of why it's such a bad law...